


Intent

by mr-finch (soubriquet)



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-08
Updated: 2012-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-15 22:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soubriquet/pseuds/mr-finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's been living in Japan for almost two years now, skipping the date of a wedding he was supposed to attend, skipping the offered place of Best Man, skipping town and right out of the country, into Okinawa where he can embrace technology and bury himself for a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intent

**Author's Note:**

> As requested by Monstar. Some character design/plot lines credited to Dien, I just thought that they would work well within this context.

He's been living in Japan for almost two years now, skipping the date of a wedding he was supposed to attend, skipping the offered place of Best Man, skipping town and right out of the country, into Okinawa where he can embrace technology and bury himself for a while.

The days have been long and- not kind, he wouldn't say that, but they have been mundane. Easier. Harold need only surround himself with people as intrigued by possibility as him, and there is no requirement (or opportunity, he makes sure) to form attachments or close, meaningful bonds. Ties.

Still, the day does come when he believes himself to have moved on. The bright lights and pacing here have dulled in attraction, and although it's entertaining to be involved, he's found himself disengaging more and more with the subject matter, drawing back even out of the labs to play with pet projects in the library or take walks. Neither of which would be any worse back home.

So he books a flight, packs his things - boxes up quite a few bits and pieces that he only needed temporarily, donates said boxes to charity shops or the trash. Then, Harold Wren is once more flying away. Disconnecting, rerouting the wires and restarting his power grid; reconnecting. He sleeps on the plane and dreams of vague conversation starters in Central Park, a taped-off section of road with workman building late at night. It's a surprise when he arrives to morning.

Without much to unpack, although this apartment had been waiting for him it seems... empty, somehow. Harold takes a hint from his own head and puts a coat on, taking a walk up the avenue and on until he meets grass. He recognises this place, but all at once it seems different. Facts: the people are taller, the dominant language is strange and he is, once again, more alone than he thought he was.

The next day, he pays a visit to an old friend.

He remembers the house. He's pretty sure there would've been a message on his phone if they had moved (there have been messages - not frequent, but there, nonetheless), so he takes a gamble and turns up at the door. It has a new knocker, he notices: brass, in the shape of a lion, with a loop of iron that curves down over it to hit the door.

Elizabeth answers a few seconds after the first try, while he's waiting, and he'd forgotten how tall she was, all dark blond hair and eyeline a good four inches higher than his. She looks at him like she doesn't know him at all, but then he says, "Mrs Ingram, is Nathan in? I was just passing by - I thought I might see how he was doing," and her wariness turns into a tired smile. "Of course, certainly, come in."

Harold steps through the doorway and she motions towards a door leading off from the entrance hall. It's darker than he remembers, and then he realises that a bulb has blown and not been replaced, its holder sitting beheaded on the wall.

"He's in the living room. I'll send him right on through," she says, and wanders off, while Harold stands nervously in the other room, the one he can't help but think of as the second living room no matter how many times Nathan had tried to call it a _day room_ , and preens his coat inbetween his fingers. 

From here, he can hear the muffled veneer of half-raised voices, of Nathan's familiar intonation that sends an spike of adrenaline through his chest. He catches a scattered selection of words before he makes himself stop listening, and instead look around himself. The lighting is low here too, with the curtains drawn against the crisp, cloudless morning outside. They aren't quite thick enough to block out all of it, though, and a slice of white light paints a line over the floor and up over the fireplace (also empty, a little ashen).

He's just taken off his glasses to clean the lenses in the hope of seeing a little clearer when he hears footsteps, realises the voices have stopped, and a hazy shape appears in the doorway. 

The case and cloth quickly snap shut and return to his coat pocket and he slides his glasses back on in time to see Nathan stepping hesitantly into the room, a look of.. something on his face. He won't quite give himself the gratification of calling it wonder, or put Nathan down by labeling it confusion, but it's somewhere inbetween the two and it's so drawing that it takes him a moment to realise it's not just the two of them. 

"Harry?" Nathan says, as if, should he blink, the visitor in his living room would disappear.

"Nathan," Harold answers, and his tone is measured, careful, but it flounders in the middle as the sense-memory fires up neurons and synapses that recant their unforgotten history to each other.

There's a kid in his arms. That's what stops him from just paying a visit. That's what makes his eyes round behind their lenses and the spike of excited nerves turn bitter in his throat, curl sullenly into anger. 

Nathan must notice him staring. "This is Will." He comes a little further in, still staying near to the door frame as if to let go of its reassurance completely would take this situation far away. "He's one." They look at each other while Will burbles. 

"Congratulations," Harold says, eventually, strained but evenly, and unlocks his fingers from where they're digging into his coat. "How's Elizabeth?"

"She's fine," says Nathan, beginning to realise that this is how it's going to go. He has that look on him like he can see exactly what Harold's thinking and the confusion is fading slowly into the emotions they've both been burying for the past four years. It's quickly becoming clear that this was a mistake, coming here. And then Nathan's coming further into the room (Harold steps back) towards something on the couch: a baby carrier. Little Will is dislodged carefully down into the nest of fabric and barely stirs.

And despite what he thinks of this- sham of a marriage, and the horror of Nathan, _Nathan Ingram_ having a child and needing to adhere to parenthood in order to feel like he wasn't Doing Elizabeth Wrong, he has to admit, these two at least work well together. His friend looks like a father, slightly older and a little careworn.

"I'm.. sorry," Harold says, as Nathan straightens up and pushes his fallen hair back with the palm of his hand.

Nathan looks at him, putting one knuckle to his belt at the side, and Harold can feel that anger even below the swathe of disappointment. "You're sorry. After-" He tightens his lips, shakes his head once to the left in that very Nathan way. "Two years of no phone calls, no emails, nothing; I thought you were _dead._ And you're sorry."

Harold licks his lip, feels all of his fury pinned downward by that tide of disappointment. Like it always was. He hates feeling bad by Nathan. "I wasn't sure... what I could do."

That's met with an incredulous scoffing noise, so Finch continues, voice just as low, and bitter, "I mean, have you told her?"

Nathan's eyes open wide and his "No" is full of surprise and just a bit of hurt. "Of course not. It doesn't-"

"Matter? Hm?" Finch steps slightly closer towards him, darts a glance down at the carrier. At this little piece of Nathan ( _eternally not his_ , a part of him whispers: an exhibit of the meaning of someone else). "You asked me to be your best man and you didn't think what that would entail? That it would be an _honor_?"

This is the conversation they should've had two years ago, wrenched unexpectedly out of this impressionist picture of a nuclear family. It wasn't intentional, perhaps neither of them actually intended it, but here it is anyway. Their own creation. 

"No, I- I meant _well_ , Harry." 

Part of him realises the similarity between what they're doing now and what he'd been listening to when he walked in, and it almost starts Harold laughing, a bubble of hysterical hilarity that would be just as much of a train-wreck as the way this conversation is headed. Harold pulls back, watches Nathan staring at him, still all creased and half-not-really-angry because Nathan has this thing of forgiving people whether he should or should not and it's let Harold get away with so much over the years. It's both a familiar sight and an arrow right through the heart.

"It's not always what you intend that matters, Nathan," Harold says, steady.

Nathan is pushing his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose, then gestures it away. "I tried calling- email- anything- I couldn't get ahold of you."

"I didn't want you to," Harold says, and they look at each other.

They're not so far away, now. There isn't thousands upon thousands of miles between them, or as many million miles separating their minds; only a foot or so separating them here. This is the first time that they've seen each other this close by in years, and Harold's suddenly all too aware of the sheer scent of him, the easy (if tired) way he carries himself, the warmth that has faded slightly over the years but still radiates seemingly perceptibly from his skin; such a high body temperature.

His voice is so familiar that Harold feels like he could climb inside his throat and work his larynx from within and get it to sound just the same. His gestures and tics and little movements are like a dance he's practiced for decades and knows exactly how to perform. The memory of eye contact is nothing compared to what it's like to stand here and recall looking into them much less than two feet away, what it feels like to rub stubbled cheek against stubble, and what Nathan's like laughing in the mornings, in the light, sober.

He can't stand here here and say "I don't want to see you," because it's not true. Now that he's here, he can't imagine what possessed him to run away, or what could possibly kick him out of this place right now, even if they're arguing. He can't hate Will, not for what he represents, or what his coming means. He loathes Elizabeth but recognises that it's a hazard of their situation, that she doesn't really deserve it, even if in his mind, she doesn't deserve this, either. And maybe their shared inkling sparks her fear into hatred for him, or will do so. That, he can't control.

But maybe it's time to stop thinking he can control this, too. That maybe, rather than hating his friend for all his bad decisions and his upbringing and his moral code, he should stand a little closer to him than a world away sometimes and remember what he's doing all of this for. Maybe he should remember that Nathan is the one who's known him the longest, that his own faults are likely just as obvious for him to see, and that this- situation that he's come into is to be expected. He can't have Nathan forever. It's a by-product of being a human being.

Nathan exhales, and turns away, hand going to the handle of the carrier. Harold hesitates, then reaches forward: a hand, the base of fingers resting gently on Nathan's forearm. "Wait."

He waits. Harold moves his hand down to Nathan's wrist, pulls lightly until the grip on the carrier lets go, and then turns the arm out towards him. Nathan turns with it - turns back, and Harold doesn't wait for permission or to think too much about it, just lets go of the wrist and steps forward, sliding his arms around him and pressing his cheek to Nathan's collar.

He feels Nathan stiffen slightly in surprise, then wariness, then finally, his hands come around and hold Harold against him, hands linked together in the small of his back. After a heartbeat, he lowers his head and rests his nose and mouth against Harold's hair. And he's so warm, this close. Harold's eyes are barely open because he doesn't have to look anymore, he can just feel.

"I missed you," Nathan says, and it's so quiet he almost doesn't hear it, but Nathan's breath hitches halfway through and then he's sure of it.

"Mm," Harold murmurs in answer, because he's trying to move and he needs to, they need to keep up the pretense before his wife walks in and everything falls apart, but the problem is he can't, he never could, and this is how he's always going to have to live: with both hands locked around Nathan's back and someone else's eyes on him.

In the end, it's Will that wakes them. He says a couple of sounds that could be words in the future, and when Harold opens his eyes he's smiling at them, so bright and happy that Harold can't help but smile back. He disentangles himself from Nathan, who also reluctantly lets go and steps away, lowering one hand to the carrier where Will takes hold of one finger like it's nothing. 

"He's good at that," Nathan says, and they both laugh. And somehow it's the very ridiculousness of the situation, at how young they both are, and how Harold jumped countries to avoid answering a phone call, together, that solves everything, and the difficulty is, if not forgotten, forgiven. It unwinds the tension that has been building up for years in one moment, and brings them all the way back to the present. It takes out all the words and the anger and gives them something to build on. If Harold could give it a name, he'd call it remembering.


End file.
